![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Some is better than None
Mar. 11th, 2024 01:50 amI will not be linking the clickbait article that has inspired this entry, and the individual responsible for the clickbait headline should have their journalistic license taken away, shredded, shot, and burnt.
The claim of the headline is that six hours of sleep is the same as None sleep.
Deep in the article, the point is finally addressed: after two weeks of inadequate sleep, the six hours of sleep contingent (having racked up 28 or so hours of sleep debt apiece) finally started performing as badly as the people who had been up for two days straight. The thing that alarmed the writer the worst was that the people who had two days awake were pretty aware that they were not doing great, but the 28 hour cohort thought they were doing fine. (They were not.)
Six hours is not enough sleep. It is not enough sleep to stay functional in the long term. But it is still better than no sleep. (Fatal insomnia is a prion disease, but inadequate sleep and driving is still extremely dangerous.) Even a little rest can help, as long as you're not awakened in the middle of a sleep cycle.
(I throw legos at the no-naps contingent of institutional sleep police. Naps are our body's way of making sure that we GET ENOUGH FUCKING REST and you can sit on those legos.)
The claim of the headline is that six hours of sleep is the same as None sleep.
Deep in the article, the point is finally addressed: after two weeks of inadequate sleep, the six hours of sleep contingent (having racked up 28 or so hours of sleep debt apiece) finally started performing as badly as the people who had been up for two days straight. The thing that alarmed the writer the worst was that the people who had two days awake were pretty aware that they were not doing great, but the 28 hour cohort thought they were doing fine. (They were not.)
Six hours is not enough sleep. It is not enough sleep to stay functional in the long term. But it is still better than no sleep. (Fatal insomnia is a prion disease, but inadequate sleep and driving is still extremely dangerous.) Even a little rest can help, as long as you're not awakened in the middle of a sleep cycle.
(I throw legos at the no-naps contingent of institutional sleep police. Naps are our body's way of making sure that we GET ENOUGH FUCKING REST and you can sit on those legos.)
